YNaija Editorial: President Buhari’s ministerial list and the search for saints

Buhari's ministerial nominee tainted with allegations of fraud | YNaija.com

After a long wait, President Muhammadu Buhari has finally nominated, in two batches, the ministers that will serve in his cabinet.

Hardly has there ever been a time when the list of ministers was as eagerly awaited as now, and the period of four months before it came, heightened anticipations and gave room for speculation galore.

Naturally, the focus on the nominees has not only been on the competence of the nominees, but also on their integrity, especially after President Buhari promised not to appoint tainted people into his government as evidence of his seriousness in dealing with corruption.

Coupled with the delay in the naming of the nominees, it was subsequently joked that possibly, the President could not find Nigerians that fit his criteria and had gone to convince celestial beings to come and serve in his cabinet.

How well he has kept that promise depends on a matter of perspective: although there are no court cases bordering on financial impropriety or corruption petitions with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against the nominees, quite a number are perceived to have questions to answer in that regard, chief among which are former governors of Lagos and Rivers State respectively, Babatunde Fashola and Rotimi Amaechi, and former Finance Commissioner of Ogun State, Kemi Adeosun.

Already, these nominations have earned President Buhari quite a lot of bashing on social media and the comments sections of news sites; where he’s been accused of being biased in his stance on corruption vis a vis party loyalty.

Should these possible ministers end up having official EFCC petitions or court cases against them, the president will find himself boxed into a corner and having to possibly replace them as it could be used to cost him political goodwill, especially regarding his position on corruption.

While we admire the commitment of the president to ridding Nigeria of the cankerworm of corruption in not just setting a personal example but by establishing minimum acceptable standards of integrity of public officers, we believe that not appointing tainted persons into government is not enough to demonstrate this.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we have ceaselessly harped about the need to institute the needed legal and administration reforms to make fighting corruption more effective – the merger of anti-graft agencies to prevent overlap and make them a leaner, meaner machine; pushing for the passage of laws such as the Whistleblowers’ Act and Non-Conviction Asset-Based Forfeiture Law; and working with the judiciary to avoid corruption cases being lost in the byzantine court system and processes we currently have.

While these reforms have also been trumpeted by previous administration, a very important factor to making them come to light will be the presence of political will, or the parlance of today, the President’s body language. It is in regard to this that President Buhari has made his promise of no tainted persons in his government.

President Buhari should learn the many lessons from the time of his predecessor who shielded persons in his government who were either asked to appear before the National Assembly, constitutionally charged with their oversight, or refused to act when the negligence of a cabinet minister led to the loss of lives.

President Buhari should publicly and privately make it known to Nigerians and those in his cabinet that he will not offer any form of special treatment or protection to persons within his government. Also, he should use his discretion to let go of ministers or special advisers against whom there are weighty allegations in order that he does not become guilty by association.

Once again, there are a bunch of lessons for President Buhari to learn from another of his predecessors, President Olusegun Obasanjo who never hesitated to sack persons within his cabinet with corruption allegations, even though sadly, none was ever prosecuted to conclusion as to clear their name or otherwise.

President Buhari has quite a golden opportunity based on his electoral promises to begin the needed cultural re-orientation and mindset change as regards corruption for politically exposed persons in government.

After all, in the end, saints are not born but made.

We need to ensure that we have a culture that encourages their emergence by having zero tolerance for the bad eggs in public service.

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